Back to Square One (With Hope)

I wonder if anyone out there feels like I have been feeling...

Here we are. Again. The starting line. Again? Really?

Really.

"Oh my gosh. This is so ridiculous. So cliche! The beginning of a new year, a new outlook on life and losing weight. Gag! How many times have you done this, Keelie? No one believes you can do it. You are pitiful. Why are you even doing this again? You never succeed. You never stay the course. You are going to make an idiot of yourself. Don't bother. No one even cares if you are "healthy" or not. It's pointless. You have never been able to stop yourself from quitting. You are weak. You are addicted to food. Food! How gross is that? Why can't you just control yourself? ugh! Disgusting. Even if you do good for a while you'll slip. You'll fall hard. You always do. And then you'll feel sorry for yourself. You'll eat. And eat. And eat. And then you'll get so fat that your clothes will look horrible and won't fit. You'll have to wear the same outfit over and over again when you go in public because it's the only thing that buttons. Oh but that's right, you aren't giving up. You're going to "try again," again. It's cute. It really is. But you are a lost cause. A joke. Give it up. Just do us all a favor and stop.

Anyone?

This is shame. The shame of the enemy.

I have to make a choice right now.The shame of Satan or the God of Hope?

In our failure, in our fatness, in our weakness and in our shame, Jesus came for us. He said "I love you." with his life and death. He takes that very Love and pours it into our hearts. If we confess our weakness of character, the undeniable urge to serve only ourselves and if we believe He loves us anyway then we become children of God. To each of us who is a sinner and believes we need saving, God adopts us as his beloved. He sees a heart made beautiful by the blood of his Son. The shame, in reality, is gone as far as the east is from the west. If Someone can love me in spite of me--and He does-- then there is hope. And Hope will not put us to shame. Never.

So I've decided that I'm not going to be ashamed of starting again and believing that I'll be successful.This is the confidence I have, that He who began a good work in me will finish what He started. That's His plan, and who am I to argue? Not only is beginning again possible, it's necessary. I'm done with shame.

And Satan...well he can just go to hell.

Baby Bundt for the Soul

Yesterday after hours of Christmas shopping I finally waved my white flag in the battle of "I Want Sweets." Reluctantly I entered the Corner Bakery and sheepishly ordered a chocolate baby bundt cake. I rendered my coffee the perfect shade of creamy caramel and de-layered into a cozy booth for one. My eyes began to wander around, taking in all the people as I carefully cut and ate each section of my chocolatey, seemingly comforting cake, assuring myself this would be the last sugar I'd have in 2013.

The hustly, bustly holiday people were packed into this joint. Some talking, some texting. The awkward girlfriend eating her sandwich with one hand covering her mouth as she alternated chewing and nervously giggling uncontrollably while her aloof companion scarfed down his food. There was the 50-something-year-old man with a newspaper under his arm waiting impatiently for his to-go order to be brought out. Two cute older ladies splitting a sandwich and a muffin. A mom trying to feed her 4 kids under the age of 6. Methodically...a well oiled machine. Likely soaking up every last minute of "getting out" before returning to what we mom's affectionately refer to as "Home."

And then there was me. 

The overweight girl in a corner booth eating her big-enough-for-3-or-4 "baby" bundt cake. Every last bite of it. Peering out from behind a book wondering if anyone was reading me the way I was reading them. 

My thoughts were jolted when an annoyingly symmetrical, upside-down-heart-shaped, hard-as-a-rock, perky little booty covered in black tights (which are apparently the same thing as pants now) pranced past me.

Wow. Just wow. I'm sure my eyes were bugging out of my head. So much flooding my mind, If only...how in the world...stop STARING!... 

As she sat down in the booth just in front of me,  wondered what it would be like to have that bum (what Glory would call it) as I used my fork to smash and lift up the surviving micro-crumbs of my baby bundt. Guess I'll never know. Ha. 

My daydreaming was once again interrupted when I over-heard a server ask the table behind me if they had ordered a cup of chicken noodle soup. 

Chicken noodle soup? 

Who comes to a place like Corner Bakery and orders a CUP of chicken noodle soup? Do they not KNOW about the Club Panini? The combos that include salad, soup, and a sandwich? The Maple Pecan Squares or the Monster Cookies? Do they not fear they will be stark-raving HUNGRY when they leave if they only have a cup of chicken noodle soup? No coffee? Really? I feel kind of sorry for that person. Who does that?

No one was claiming it. I assumed a mistake had been made. It was surely an add-on to the mom of 4's order. Sometimes the kids eat more than you think they will, ya know? 

But no. The server moved past me, glanced to the left and stopped. 

Booty Girl. 

Seeing that her plastic number was a match to the singular cup of brothy nothingness the server gently slid said nothingness in front of little black bum lady. I couldn't contain myself as I actually let out a brief Lol.Of course! This is exactly who orders a cup of chicken noodle soup at Corner Bakery. 

In all seriousness. I know better than to judge a book by its cover. Or a lady by her bum. For all I know she could have had a virus. And for all those people who were reading me at the Corner Bakery know, I could have eaten like a tight-booty gal today.

Precious Memory

I think it's funny that I decided if I didn't have anything to write about I would do a "gratitude post." As if that is something less important that what I have to say about...whatever. How self-absorbed. Duh.

Anyway...Today's gratitude post is about memory. I realized last night at a prayer meeting when we were directed to pray in thanksgiving for memories what a magnificent thing our memory is. I've never really thought about how unique the memory is. The ability to replay something in our mind. A decade, a year, a season, a day, a moment--we can recall because of memory. And attached to the mental picture comes sound, feeling, smell, emotion. A memory has the potential to engage the whole person, physically, mentally, emotionally and definitely spiritually. The more that I think about it, I believe our memory could be one of the most spiritual things about us. God certainly has purpose in everything He creates. I am overwhelmed as I begin to think of all the ways and reasons our memory is needed in our relationship with God...

So we can remember where we've been. Yes, even the most disgusting, deplorable pit imaginable can be turned to glorify God when we remember. And when we are in the bottom of the same pit  looking up we can remember that He's pulled us out before. We can remember His promises. The remarkable, miraculous ability He's given us to permanently engrave His words on our heart and in our minds and souls so that we might stay in the safety of His ways. We can remember. 

And for just sheer grace. Memories of happy times. The moment the doors flung open and the groom saw his bride. The time the family loaded up and headed to Six Flags on a Sunday morning whim. The time the test finally had two pink lines. The time the light was finally at the end of the tunnel. Hope, joy and happiness are just a thought away because of memory.

There is a song by Ginny Owens called If You Want Me To that is one of my very favorites. There are a couple of lines at the end that always bring that big lump up in the back of my throat. She talks about remembering:

So when the whole world turns against me and I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the darkness if You want me to 

When I cross over Jordan, I'm gonna sing, gonna shout
I'm gonna look into Your eyes and see, You never let me down
So take me on the pathway that will lead me home to You

I'm gonna look into Your eyes and see, You never let me down. Wow. God will one day redeem our memory. We will be able to remember our whole lives with full knowledge of Who He is. We will remember in a new way. I think this will give us the ability to worship in Spirit and in Truth unlike we ever have before. Just something cool to think about. Basically, and ultimately we have a memory so we can glorify God. 

Cheeseburgers, Scales & Expectations

You know what I hate? I hate when I get on the scale with an expectation and the number that appears is NOT low enough to make all of my sacrifice worth it. What has happened in that moment so many times in the past is that I decide right then and there that cheeseburgers are a more dependable way to be satisfied than losing weight. So I go spend the rest of the day stuffing my face with cheeseburgers.

The problem with this is that it's stupid. Because cheeseburgers are not dependable. Neither is a scale. I mean, they are dependable for the thing that they were meant to deliver. A tasty meal. A tool to measure weight. But neither is dependable to satisfy me.

Expectations are a dangerous thing if they do not consider the primary purpose of the object of expectation. The primary job of a cheeseburger is to taste good, not to make me feel good. The primary job of a scale is to measure weight, not to make me feel good.

But still, I am dying to be satisfied. Good news: The primary purpose of Christ is to satisfy me.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help,
    and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you;
    your right hand upholds me.Psalm 63:6-8 

And the primary purpose of me is to glorify God. Love how it all comes together in these words from John Piper:

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” John Piper 

On Coffee

Continuing on with my efforts to blog even when I have nothing to say, here is another gratitude entry:

I have been so thankful for coffee lately. I mean it really is such a perfectly delightful thing. I am sad that there are some people who do not like coffee. Really, I am. When I meet people one of the standard questions I ask them is in regards to their stance on coffee. "Hi, nice to meet you, _____. Where do you live?  Ahh. What do you do? Mmmm, that's cool. And do you drink coffee?..." The last person I asked said no and I think I actually apologized to her without thinking...I'm sorry. That's just how much I love coffee.

And it's such a simple thing that I wonder how someone even came up with it. To take some green little beans, roast them, grind them up, then steep with water and drink? Genius...but I would have never thought of that. Every morning when I am pouring in the cream and measuring out the spoon-fuls of sugar I give thanks to God for the grace that is coffee. It gives me so much joy! And I know I could live without it because I have before. But I'd just rather not. I wonder if part of my love for coffee has to with the fact that when I was little my grandmother used to serve me milk and sugar with a splash of coffee in the most beautiful and dainty tea cups with saucers. I still like to drink coffee in a tea cup. It's all about quality over quantity for me and coffee. Well, the quantity of the cream and sugar do matter. But I'd rather have a tiny cup of perfectly brewed coffee than gallons of gross coffee.

This is gonna sound really weird but I think of coffee as a friend sometimes. Probably not a great thing. But when I am stressed or lonely or fighting temptation coffee is my go-to companion. And coffee reminds me of God's great gifts that are so simple and yet so amazing! Coffee brings people together. It forces you to slow down. It helps you think...sometimes the most brilliant ideas come between sips. It can really be an art if you so choose for it to be. Coffee is one of the rare things that smells so irresistibly delicious and then actually delivers on taste to the same degree.(You know there are some food smells that really beat the food's actual taste by a long shot. Coffee is not in that camp.) Coffee makes me think of people I love, it makes me think of warmth when all my surroundings seem cold. It makes me think of home, stability, and simplicity. If I could learn to drink it black it is like zero calories and supposedly has great health benefits in moderate quantities. I doubt that will happen, but you never know.

Coffee is just so, so, so GOOD. Thank You, God for coffee. The end.